North Korean Blowup (2 page)

The spare personal radios came then, and Walden put one on the Marine officer and showed him how it worked. Ronkowski pointed out a Marine sergeant, and Walden ran over and put the radio on him and told him how it worked. Ronkowski turned to the shoulder mike.

“Sergeant Philbin, do you read me?”

“Loud and clear, Lieutenant. Handy little gadgets.”

“We’re going to get some. You work the Marines on your side of the gate.”

“That’s a Roger, Lieutenant.”

“Bull Pups,” Hunter said to his mike. “If there’s a charge down the street towards the gate, put impact rounds in front of them. That will be most effective.”

A chorus of responses came in Hunter’s earpiece. He looked around at the defenses. “Windows, you guys in position?”

“All set, Cap. Cranked out three windows.  We’re all three ready with fifteen rounds each.”

“Roger, windows.”

“These guys used any RPG’s?” Hunter asked.

Ronkowski shook his head. “Haven’t seen a one down here. These rebels aren’t very well equipped. Mostly AK-47’s and some old French shooters. They’ve thrown just two grenades. My guess they don’t have many of them.”

Just then a hand grenade hit the iron gate and dropped outside exploding with a flashing roar with shrapnel sailing through the gate and cutting into a Marine and one SEAL who had stepped back from the wall. Hunter saw McNally go down after the blast.

“McNally, you hit?” Hunter asked.

The earpiece came on. “Just a scratch, Cap.”

“Foster, check out McNally and a Marine who was hit. Get them back from the damned gate.”

“I’m moving, Cap,” Foster said. The medic ran to McNally and checked his leg. The cammy was ripped open and a slice three inches long in his upper right leg bled like a stuck caribou. Foster opened his medic kit and pulled the wound together with stretch bandages, then put on gauze pads and wrapped it up.  McNally went back to the gate and took over the MG Foster had left.

The medic checked the Marine who had scurried back to the wall. He had only a minor shrapnel cut on his left arm. Foster wrapped it up and went back to his MG.

“Hey Cap. The Marine is just scratched. McNally has a three inch slash on his leg. Need some stitches when we have time.”

“We’ve got company,” Tran sang out from his wall perch. “Looks like about a hundred of them charging up the street straight for us.”

“All weapons cleared to fire,” Hunter barked into his radio. The machine guns at the gate both pushed out with the muzzles through the steel grillwork and chattered off five round bursts at the running men. Three in the front row fell and others stumbled over them. A twenty mm round hit just in front of the line spraying deadly shrapnel straight into the running men. A dozen fell and the others ran around them. The weapons on the wall chattered out a greeting to the rebels.

The wave of black men firing rifles surged forward. The machine guns slammed out twelve round bursts now and the line of attackers wavered, and then fell back. Two lifted up and threw grenades, but they fell short of the gate. Six more rounds from the twenty mm Bull Pups showered the men with shards of steel. The rebels who still could turned, ran back to the first house, and darted behind the protection as rifle fire followed them picking off a few more.

“Cease fire,” Hunter said. The weapons went silent except for two Marines. The sergeant with the radio heard, shouted at them, and quiet returned to the compound.

A white flag waved from near one of the houses.

“Let them come clean up the dead and wounded,” Hunter said to his mike. “They may have had enough for one day.”

“They knew they had knocked out our MG,” Lt. Ronkowski said. “The two new ones surprised them. I don’t think they’ll try a naked charge again like that.”

“They must have lost half of their men,” Hunter said.

“At least twenty are still in the street where they fell,” Ronkowski said. “Now, what about night? Be dark in another two hours.”

“Any perimeter lights outside the wall?” Hunter asked.

“No, a few exterior lights inside the compound. They stay on at night.”

“Cap, you hear that noise?” Tran asked on the radio.

“What noise?”

“From the back somewhere. Listen.”

“Yes, now I hear something.”

“That’s a tank, Cap. Somebody is coming up behind the compound with a fucking tank.”

“That’s how they took down the British Embassy,” Lt. Ronkowski said. “Punched a hole in the concrete block wall with a tank they captured from the regular army.”

“Two ladders down and get to the rear wall with them,” Hunter barked into his radio. “Lieutenant, show us where they are.”

Three minutes later the men ran around the side of the embassy and to the back wall. It was partly covered with vines, and three trees grew just inside the twelve foot wall.

“Put up the ladders for Bull Pups. Give me a reading.”

They could hear the tank plainly now. Hunter figured it was still a quarter of a mile away.

Tran was first up his ladder. “Cap, we’ve got mostly houses back here, but a street leads right up to the wall. Can’t see the tank yet, but it’s coming. Sound getting louder.”

“Roger that. Let us know when you see him.”

Hunter turned to the Marine. “Tran is our lead scout. He can hear a fly walking across a carrot cake at fifty yards.”

Two more ladders came, and SEALs with Bull Pups soon checked over the wall.

“Bancroft, come in,” Hunter said.

 “Yo, Cap. See the tank yet?”
               “Not yet. You’ve got the con at the front gate. Keep three or four men on the wall and the MG’s ready at the gate. I don’t think you’ll have much business there.”

“Quiet so far. They’ve taken away about twenty wounded who had trouble walking. More blood drying on the street out there.”

Hunter climbed one of the ladders and watched the rear street. There blocks down he saw a tank come around the corner and head for the compound. “Ronkowski, did they ram the wall with the tank or use the big gun to punch a hole?”

“The gun, a one oh five I think it carries.”

The tank was four hundred yards off. “Let’s see if we can hit his tracks and put him dead in the water,” Hunter said. He pulled up his own Bull Pup and sighted in on the tank. Two other twenties fired before he did. He watched the target. One round was low, another went over the rig. He watched the tank turn sideways for a moment. He fired. The round hit the turret and might have done enough damage to stop the big gun from swinging around. Another round slammed into the tank and exploded on the running gear but the tracks were not damaged.

Two more rounds zeroed in on the side of the tank and the last one blew the tracks off the big rollers. The tank could only drive in circles with one tread off. They watched as the turret swung the big gun around, but it stalled and couldn’t come around far enough to aim at the compound. The top of the tank opened and three men scrambled out and looked at the tread. Hunter laser sighed in on the tank and fired. The air burst staggered two of the men and put the third down. The men limped off behind the tank.

“Watch them, Tran. If they move it, let me know.”

They took the other two ladders back to the front wall.

A half hour later, darkness took over the scene. Hunter put two men on ladders at the front wall with thermal imagers. They are hand held gadgets about four inches square with a screen. Firemen use them to find people in smoke filled rooms. You point the front at an area and if any humans or large animals are there, it reacts to the body heat and shows with a white image on the black screen at the back of the box.

“You men with the TI’s. If you see any suspicious men wandering up toward the wall put a warning shot near them. If they keep coming, blast them into hell.”

“That’s a wilco, Cap.” Lawrence said.

Lt. Ronkowski looked at Hunter. “Wilco, what’s that?”

Hunter grinned. “Not used much anymore. It was big in the army in World War II. It means Will Comply. Another service short cut. We got used to using it after seeing some old war movies.”

“Cap, I’ve got a runner,” Lawrence said.

“Coming toward the compound?”

“Affirmative.”

“Take him out.”

They heard a three round burst from the 5.56, then another three rounds. As the lead messengers hit the rebel one set off a hand grenade he carried blasting a thunderclap of sound and a flash of light as hand bomb exploded.

“Splash one,” Lawrence said.

A moment later another grenade went off just inside the compound wall, down fifty feet. Lawrence turned his thermal imager that way and saw a man running away from the wall.

“Saw that one, but no shot,” he radioed.

In the next half hour three more men tried to throw grenades into the compound near the front gate, and all three were nailed before they could launch the hand bombs. One must have already pulled the safety pin, because when his dead hand relaxed from the grenade, it exploded in a Fourth of July flash of deadly sparklers.

After eight o’clock the rest of the night was quiet. The SEALs ate MRE’s. Hunter took ten of his men off the line and put them down in a barracks like room where the Marines also slept. Bancroft took the first watch with five SEALs until midnight. He had four men on the wall and one on the machine gun, but he didn’t expect any action.

At midnight Hunter took the watch with four new men on the wall and one on the MG.

Hunter setup the SATCOM and contacted the admiral in his office. It was about one a.m. Hunter’s time. He had no idea what time it was in DC.

“Home Plate, this is your mid reliever,” Hunter said.

The admiral came on sounding wide awake. “Mid reliever. Heard from State that you are still under attack. How is it going?”

“Repelled one attack, and killed a tank with designs on the rear wall. Outside of that just some fraggers. Expect more action with sunup. It’s about oh one hundred here.”

“Do you need anything?”

“A couple of tanks and a regiment of Marines would help, but I think we can outlast them. Only one minor wound so far.”

“From what we hear the rebels are on the run in three areas from the local army. They may pull back some of their firepower.”

“That’s good. Any new orders?”

“Stay the course, and don’t take any chances.”

“Aye aye, Admiral. Out.”

Hunter shut down the mini SATCOM. It was a miniaturization of the old SATCOM that was the size of two loaves of bread. This new one was four inches wide, two inches thick and about six inches high. It would do everything the large one did. Encrypted all messages, and transmitted in a hundredth of a second burst, so anyone trying to fix  the signal by triangulation would have a nightmare. It also came with an optional self destruct device so if it was not operated properly with a password, it would blow into a hundred pieces. It sent its signal directly to a satellite which beamed it down to the receiver. Hunter could talk with more than twenty different contacts. This one was the frequency for the chairman of the Chiefs of Staff.

He put the set away and stared out the front gate. No action was good action.

By 0830 Hunter’s team was sleeping and the fresh crew was on duty with Lt. Bancroft in command. He had shooters on the ladders and the boxes on the front wall, so he had eight weapons over the wall and the two machine guns in place. They waited.

It was just after 0900 when a car came around the corner three blocks away and drove slowly up one block and stopped about two hundred yards from the gate. A man got out and used a bull horn. He spoke perfect English.

“Good Morning Marines in the embassy. I come in peace. I come directly from President Afwerki to confer with you about the defense of your embassy.”

Bancroft looked at Marine Lieutenant Ronkowski.

“Not a chance. Our ambassador talks with the president daily by phone. No way he would send someone in an old car like that.”

Bancroft moved to the edge of the gate and used his parade ground voice to bellow his response. “Glad to receive you. Walk forward with your hands in plain sight.”

“I am not a terrorist. I come in peace.”

“Leave the car there and come to the gate. Welcome.”

“My legs are bad. War wounds. I can’t walk that far.”

“Leave the car and walk forward, or turn around and leave,” Bancroft shouted.

The man threw up his hands, and stepped back in the car. It was still for a moment, then gears clashed and the car leaped forward spinning wheels as it careened straight for the front gate.

“Car bomb,” Bancroft barked into his mike.” Twenties, blow him off the face of the earth.”

CHAPTER TWO

The ten year old sedan charged down the street leading toward the embassy. A twenty mm round hit beside it, then another slammed into the concrete ahead of it, The third round hit the windshield, penetrated and exploded inside the car setting off a secondary explosion that blew out windows in three of the nearby houses and knocked down two trees in the yards. The explosion took place fifty yards from the compound wall, but the men on the ladders had to hang on to keep from being blown off. A withering storm of hot air rocketed away from the blast, and then a few second later the flow reversed as air rushed back into the partial vacuum that the huge explosion had created.

The sedan had vanished. Only part of the front bumper lay on the street fifty feet from the compound wall. In the street a hole six feet deep and twice that wide had been created.

“Holy shit,” Dengler said from his spot on the wall. “Glad that sucker didn’t get to the gate.”

“Nice shooting men,” Bancroft said. “Keep watch, they could follow it up with another attack.”

Hunter ran out of the safe door and found Bancroft.

“What the hell was that?”

Bancroft pointed out the gate to the hole in the street and the streamers of smoke coming from parts of the up thrust dirt and paving.

“Early Fourth of July. A car bomb that didn’t quite get here.”

“A twenty get it?”

“Right through the windshield.”

“Wonder what they’ll try next?”